Elaboración del plan para implementar la actividad lúdica en clases de consolidación

In their (2008), Kentridge et al. take themselves to be responding to an argument of Mole’s that is pertinent to their denial that visual attention is sufficient for visual awareness. So what is the argument they take

themselves to be responding to? In the abstract to their paper, they say Mole assumes that ‘all that is attended in spatial attention is space’, and in

response object that ‘spatial attention can be deployed with the specific goal of determining the properties of objects occupying the attended region of space.’ It is a reasonable guess that they take Mole to be agreeing that GY is exercising his attention, and that they take Mole to be claiming that it is possible to visually attend to a spatial location without thereby attending to objects occupying that location. As we have seen, Mole’s argument does not concern visual attention, so we should not understand Mole as making the claim that it is possible to visually attend to a location without thereby

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the last section, this seems to offer a way of salvaging pat of Mole’s defence of sufficiency.

Kentridge et al. want the spatial cuing experiments with GY to be accepted by supporters of sufficiency as a demonstration of the exercise of visual attention, and specifically a demonstration of GY’s visual attention to the target stimulus. Perhaps mindful of the strangeness of the claim that GY is visually attending to something that he is visually unaware of, they start with a characterisation of attention derived from William James. According to James, attention is

“… the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem

several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to

deal effectively with others…”63

According to Kentridge and colleagues,

“Attention… involves a process of selection (withdrawal of processing from parts of the

world in favour of other parts) and enhancement (the selective concentration of resources results in enhanced processing of the object of attention). In visual attention selection might be based on all sorts of properties, for example colour (‘look out for red things’),

shape (‘look out for triangles’) or spatial location (‘look out for things on your left’).”64

63 _{James (1890) p. 382}

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Now, on James’ description of attention, it is a ‘concentration of consciousness’, so selection (‘withdrawal from some things’) and

enhancement (‘dealing effectively with other things’) constitute only part of what James thinks attention is. I have conceded that without an explanation of why attention is essentially conscious, our typical use of the word can only be an indication, and not a proof of attention’s sufficiency for awareness. Providing that explanation is the subject of the next chapter, but even without an explanation we are not obliged to just accept Kentridge and colleagues’ characterisation of attention as selective enhancement.

Kentridge, de-Wit and Heywood go on to say that selecting a location for attention ‘only seems sensible’ in order to ‘facilitate processing of objects which might be presented at that location’.65 Clearly, there are different ways in which we can understand this claim. Someone concerned to argue in favour of the sufficiency of attention for awareness might agree with regard to the normal case, but would certainly disagree in cases where there was no awareness of the putative object of attention. If, for example, while driving I look to my left to see if the way is clear, this would be an example of my selecting a location in order to acquire more information about objects which might be occupying it. If, on the other hand, I am in a pitch black

environment, it would be highly questionable whether it makes sense to say that I was selecting an object that happens to lurk in my line of sight, even if I am somehow able to utilise visual information pertaining to it. (How we

65 _Ibid.

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understand the activity of making a selection, I will argue in the next section, ought to affect what we think of GY’s claim to be ‘trying to attend’ to part of his blind field.)

This is the point at which Kentridge and colleagues move to persuade doubters that there is ‘good evidence that selection and enhancement processes are independent’ (p. 107). What they mean by this is that the selection of a location does not preclude the possibility of the visual

processing of an object at that location being enhanced, even if the perceiver is unaware of the object. Why, they ask, should we assume that “attending to a location is not part of the same process as attending to the properties of objects at that

location”?66 That is, as long as there is evidence of enhanced processing in

the form of speeded responses in the Posner paradigm, why shouldn’t that be sufficient to conclude that it is the object, and not just the location, that is being attended to? They offer empirical evidence they believe weighs in favour of this view, evidence concerning the enhancement of processing of properties of objects at attended locations. If what is attended to is an area of space and not any particular object that might occupy that space, then

enhancement of processing should occur for any object occupying that space. If, instead, enhancement of processing depends on which object occupies that space, we have a case for thinking of this object-specific exercise as being attention to the object. The evidence comes from a set of experiments, conducted on subjects with normal vision, by Roger Remington and Charles Folk, published in Remington and Folk (2001).

66 _{Kentridge et al. (2008) p. 107.}

53 Remington and Folk begin by noting that

“… there seems to be widespread agreement on two related assumptions common to

both space-based and object-based selection [one of which is] when a location or

object has been attended, all features of the attended object are selected regardless of

their relevance to the immediate task..."67

Remington and Folk set out to test this assumption by separating the effects of task-relevant and task-irrelevant features of the presented stimuli while also precisely controlling the allocation of spatial attention.

The set-up is a bit complicated, but necessary to fully understand how they go about showing that the enhancement of processing following spatially allocated attention is sensitive to the properties of the object which occupies the space. The key points of the first set of trials are as follows. The feature dimension of the target stimulus subjects were expected to respond to was indicated at the start of each trial: its identity – whether it was a 'T' or a 'L', or its orientation – whether it was tilted left or right. Every presentation included stimuli (both target and distractors) with both feature dimensions ('T' or 'L' letters tilted one way or the other), so subjects had to ignore the irrelevant feature dimension.

67 _{Remington and Folk (2001) p. 511.}

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There were four clearly defined locations on the display at which stimuli appeared, only one of which was the target stimulus. The target stimulus was clearly identifiable by its colour (it was the only red letter). Distractors (non- target stimuli) included 'foils' with target characteristics (they were also tilted 'T' or 'L', but in white) and others ('neutral' distractors) with only non-target characteristics (the letters 'E' and 'F', upright and in white). Before the stimuli were presented, one of the four locations was cued. The cued location was not always the location where the target stimulus was subsequently

presented (the target stimulus appeared only 25% of the time at the cued location).

What subjects were required to respond to was either the orientation of the target (right or left), or its identity ('T' or 'L'). In identification trials (i.e. trials where the subjects were expected to identify whether the target was a 'T' or 'L', ignoring its tilt) if the target was 'T', subjects were to respond by pressing their right index finger, and if the target was 'L' subjects were to respond by pressing their right middle finger. In orientation trials (i.e. trials where

subjects had to identify right or left tilt of the target, ignoring whether it was a 'T' or 'L'), if the target was tilting to the left responses were made by pressing the right index finger, right-tilting target responses were made by pressing the right middle finger. Responses to 'T' (identification) and left-tilt

(orientation) were both 'compatible' (i.e. made by pressing the right index finger). In contrast, responses to 'T' and right-tilt were incompatible (i.e. made by pressing different fingers).

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Response times were fastest for cued irrelevant-dimension compatible targets, and slowest for cued relevant-dimension incompatible foils. So if, for example, on an orientation trial, the target was a left-tilted 'T', and it was cued, the response time would be much faster than if a right-tilted foil had been cued. What is of particular interest is that, while there was a significant difference in response time between compatible and incompatible irrelevant features of the target (cued or not), there was no significant difference in response time between compatible and incompatible irrelevant features of the foil (cued or not). So for example in an orientation trial, if the target's irrelevant feature (its identity – whether 'T' or 'L') was incompatible with its relevant feature (i.e. required a different finger press response), the response would be slower than if its irrelevant feature was compatible. However, in an orientation trial, whether the irrelevant feature (identity) of the foils was compatible with their orientation or not made no significant difference in response time. In other words, the task-irrelevant features of foils were just ignored. Remington and Folk take their results to provide evidence against the assumption that ‘all features of the attended object are selected

regardless of their relevance to the immediate task’: even when the foil was cued, whether its irrelevant feature was compatible or not made no

significant difference in response time.

How does this evidence support Kentridge, de-Wit and Heywood's rejection of the distinction between attention to a location and attention to an object at that location, on which they base their claim that "attention can act without

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consciousness"?68 The fact that there was no significant difference in response

time between cued and un-cued non-target items with incompatible irrelevant features shows, they say, that “spatial attention can be deployed in order to

determine whether objects with a specific property are present”, and as “the facilitation

of processing in attended space only applies to objects with that specific property”,69 it

doesn’t make sense to them to argue that it is the space and whatever objects occupy it that are being attended to. Even if we suppose, as I suggested we should for the moment, that GY was attending to a portion of his blind field, Remington and Folk’s results are not decisive. The Remington and Folk experiment shows that when our visual attention is spatially cued, we can exercise discrimination regarding whether what we find at that location is relevant. The subjects in the experiment were visually aware of the colour of the object at the cued location, and were able to ignore it if it was not red. It does not follow from this that blindseers, who lack any visual awareness of objects in their blind field, could selectively ignore objects based on their colour in this way. We have to further suppose that blindseers can exercise some equivalent discriminative capacity.

Once we drop the assumption that GY was visually attending to a portion of his blind field, Kentridge and his colleagues are once again faced with the challenge I posed in the previous section. The challenge I posed in the previous section asked whether, when what is cued is within a blindseer’s blind field, it still makes sense to think that the Posner task is measuring the effects of attention at all. Subjects in the Remington and Folk experiments

68 _{Kentridge et al. (2008) p. 110.} 69 _{Kentridge et al. (2008) p. 109.}

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were visually aware of the cued targets. The reason we ought to think of the Posner task as a measure of the effects of visual attention, I have said, is its similarity to the use of pointing to visually attract someone’s attention to something. When a blindseer is asked to attempt the Posner task, whatever it is that is facilitating the speeding of his response times is not conscious. We can, therefore, quite legitimately question whether it is attention at all.

Kentridge, de-Wit and Heywood present, by reference to the Remington and Folk experiment, a compelling case for the enhancement of processing (in terms of speed of response) that cuing a location can bring about being sensitive to the properties of the object at the cued location. This shows that the selection of a location does not simply mean everything at that location receives enhanced processing. It also shows that what it is that receives enhanced processing can depend on the intentions of the attending subject (in the experiment described, the subject’s intention to report the orientation or identity of the red target rather than the white distractors). All this is, as far as I can tell, quite consistent with the way we normally think of looking for something. Abstracting from the complexities of Remington and Folk’s

experiment, if I am looking for something and I am directed to the right place, I will find it more quickly. If, instead, I am directed to a location occupied by something that is clearly not what I am looking for, my search will be

delayed. But it seems quite plausible, even without the experimental

evidence, that the properties of the unwanted object will not affect the length of the delay. What is interesting about Remington and Folk’s results is that we learn something about the circumstances under which we cannot ignore

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irrelevant information. (According to their results, the task-irrelevant dimension of the target did affect response times, so it seems we cannot always ignore what is irrelevant when it is a property of the object we are looking for).

However, what Remington and Folk’s results do not show is that in the very different circumstances of the experiments with GY, what was being

measured was attention. If visual attention, conceived as sufficient for

awareness, can explain our visually based thoughts and actions in a way that blindseers’ selection and enhancement cannot, we can be confident that visual attention plays a distinctive and therefore indispensable role. In that case, Remington and Folk’s results will not motivate the revision of what we mean by ‘attention’, from something that is essentially a conscious

phenomenon to something that is not.

There is a further twist to the exchange between Mole and Kentridge. In response to newer experimental data produced by Kentridge and

colleagues,70 Mole has conceded that attention to an object is not sufficient for awareness of it.71 Does this new evidence settle the question against the sufficiency of visual attention for awareness? Norman, Heywood and

Kentridge made use of a task in which (normally sighted) subjects are required to register (by pressing a button) the appearance of a target which may or may not be validly cued. 72 In this task, the target is located within one

70 _{Norman et al. (2013).} 71 _{Mole (2014).}

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of two identical rectangular shapes displayed. The two rectangles are either both positioned vertically, or both positioned horizontally. In both horizontal and vertical positions, the cue and target could appear at either end of either of the rectangles. When the rectangles are positioned vertically, the distance between the top of one and the top of the other is the same as their height; when they are positioned horizontally, the distance between the left (or right) end of one and the left (or right) end of the other is the same as their length. The task is constructed to test whether there is a reaction time advantage when the target is invalidly cued with the cue appearing in the opposite end of the same rectangle compared to the invalid cue appearing in the other rectangle. Since the distance between cue and target in both cases is the same, the fact that reaction times are reduced when the invalid cue is located within the same shape as the target suggests that attention is being directed to the object (the shape) and not just a spatial location. The

innovation to this task introduced by Norman, Heywood and Kentridge was to mask the rectangles, so subjects had no visual awareness of them. Despite subjects being unaware of the rectangles, there was a small reaction time advantage when the invalid cue was located within the same rectangle.

So what do these results prove? Do they prove that, even in the case of normally sighted subjects, attention can be directed to objects that they are visually unaware of? As with the Remington and Folk data, the proper response is to insist that visual attention – conceived as sufficient for awareness – is indispensable if it can explain our visually based thoughts and actions in a way that unconscious selection and enhancement cannot. It

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should be clear this is a perfectly legitimate response, since the question being considered is what we mean by ‘attention’ in visual perception. There is a prima facie case for visual attention being sufficient for awareness: you will struggle to pay attention to the colour of an object you are not aware of. Before beginning any investigation into whether visual selection of an object and subsequent enhanced processing of it can be dissociated from visual awareness of it, we need to determine what (if any) distinctive role visual attention (conceived as sufficient for awareness) plays. If visual attention so conceived plays a distinctive role by explaining some aspect of our visually based thoughts and actions that unconscious selection and enhancement cannot, any motivation for investigating whether visual attention and

awareness can dissociate is undermined. In very plain terms, our first move should be to ask what visual attention does for us. It is only once we have determined what it does for us that we can consider whether it can continue to play that role even if it is detached from visual awareness.

Instead of thinking of Kentridge and his colleagues – as they themselves do